Because of Their Broken Spirit

Passage: Exodus 6:2-9

When the Israelites’ hardship persists in Egypt, they give up hope that God will act on their behalf.  In response, God restates his commitment to his chosen people.  God says,
I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord.

Moses brings God’s message to his people.  And you’d think that would be enough.  But, we’re told:

“Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery.”

They did not listen to Moses because of their broken spirit…

Have you ever been in a place where your ears were closed to good news?  Where your circumstances seemed so hopeless that no amount of encouragement could get through to you?  What does it take to repair a broken spirit?  Nothing short of the miraculous intervention of God.  Israel's hopes aren’t revived until they see evidence of God’s hand at work.  I don’t think we’re much different.  We respond to others’ brokenness of spirit with trite words and promises we can't keep.  We prescribe distraction or medication when what’s needed is God’s miraculous intervention.  Our happiness isn’t God’s priority. But here’s what is: our freedom and our faith.  God is endlessly committed to setting his people free from bondage to brokenness and despair.  And God is relentless in showing us what he’s capable of.  If a broken spirit afflicts you, or someone you love, don’t punish yourself for not having the right words.  And don’t hesitate to pray for God to intervene.  God is willing to show his hand.   

I will deliver you from slavery, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm…I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God.

Hangin' in there

Passage: Exodus 5:15-23

Moses’ life with God is basically a non-stop nail-biter - waiting on a razor's edge for God to act.  Recall that Moses got the job of God’s ambassador to Egypt entirely against his will.  That Moses has only with great reluctance gone to Pharaoh and said, “Let my people go.”  That every time God tells Moses to do something it involves Moses taking his life into his hands.  The payoff of course has been that God has promised to rescue the Israelites from slavery.

Except that God hasn’t delivered.  And instead, Moses’ visits have antagonized Pharaoh, so that Pharaoh has redoubled his efforts to make life miserable for the Israelites.  The Israelites have come back to Moses and said, “Thanks for nothing.  In fact, thanks for making things worse than they were before.”  Moses says, “Wait a minute, none of this was my idea!”  Moses prays,
“O Lord, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all.”

God hasn’t come through.  Yet.  Moses and his people are so impatient that they accuse God of evil.

How long are we willing to wait for God to act?  We say a prayer.  We wait.  A day.  Maybe a week.  Sometimes a year.  It’s always too long.  When God doesn’t act quickly enough, we assume he’s not going to.  We accuse God of evil.  Life with God is about hangin’ in there.  Waiting and trusting.  Taking God at his word:

For I know the plans I have for you – plans to prosper you and not harm you; plans to give you hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11)

God always has our best interests at heart – even when circumstances don’t seem to be going our way.  The Belgic Confession puts it like this:

         “…God is not the author of,
        nor can he be charged with,
        the sin that occurs.
        For his power and goodness
        are so great and incomprehensible
        that he arranges and does his work very well and justly…” 
        (Article 13, excerpt)

Hang in there, and wait for God to complete his good work in his good time.

From my Morning Post

A great meditation from Tozer on shaping our lives around our faith (not vice versa):

But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.—1 Corinthians 9:27

"What must our Lord think of us if His work and His witness depend upon the convenience of His people? The truth is that every advance that we make for God and for His cause must be made at our inconvenience. If it does not inconvenience us at all, there is no cross in it! If we have been able to reduce spirituality to a smooth pattern and it costs us nothing—no disturbance, no bother and no element of sacrifice in it—we are not getting anywhere with God. We have stopped and pitched our unworthy tent halfway between the swamp and the peak.

We are mediocre Christians!

Was there ever a cross that was convenient? Was there ever a convenient way to die? I have never heard of any, and judgment is not going to be a matter of convenience, either! Yet we look around for convenience, thinking we can reach the mountain peak conveniently and without trouble or danger to ourselves.

Actually, mountain climbers are always in peril and they are always advancing at their inconvenience."  (A.W. Tozer, I Talk Back to the Devil, 48.)

God the Protector

Passage: Genesis 35:1-7

The human response to a world full of threats is fear.  Typically fear provokes two reactions: retreat to a secure place; or aggression and taking up arms.  These responses are based on the assumption that we are alone.  That the only resources available for our protection are the ones we can get ourselves.

Jacob is an Old Testament character who lives his life as though he’s on his own.  The irony is that Jacob’s story is punctuated by encounters with God.  A God who promises to prosper him and protect him at every turn.  Repeatedly Jacob either flees from conflict, or uses deceit and manipulation to preserve himself.  Which might cause him, and we the readers of his story, to think that it’s Jacob who is the captain of his own destiny.  Except that there are too many instances in which Jacob is forced to face off against obstacles which are too great for either his smarts or his strength to overcome.  In Genesis 32 Jacob prepares to return to his homeland, where he must face Esau, the brother who holds a (justifiably) murderous grudge against him.  On the way Jacob encounters a stranger with whom he wrestles until dawn.  Jacob can’t beat him, the reason being that this stranger is God.  God blesses Jacob, but also cripples him – a reminder that Jacob is subject to forces greater than himself.  Jacob then meets Esau – whose fighting force far surpasses Jacob’s.  To Jacob’s surprise, though, Esau meets him with open arms – a change of heart Jacob could not have engineered.  Then, in Genesis 35, Jacob’s household passes through enemy territory.  They pass through untouched – but not because they are so powerful or imposing.  Rather, it’s because

…as they journeyed, a terror from God fell upon the cities that were around them, so that they did not pursue the sons of Jacob. (Genesis 35:5)

These insurmountable obstacles serve as a reminder – to Jacob and to us – that it is neither our machinations nor our muscles that navigate us safely through this dangerous world.  It’s God, who can change the hearts of our enemies as surely as he can change the seasons.  Jacob learns repeatedly that his attempts to create his own security have unintended collateral damage.  This is a lesson we are too slow to learn, as we arm ourselves against fear and terror, and create enemies where none need be.  Trust God to provide that which you never can: security.  Let him be your protector.  And live with real peace.  

(un)healthy Competition

Passage: Genesis 30:1-22

Last weekend I watched This Means War.  It’s a romantic comedy in which two CIA agents who are best friends fall for the same girl.  They use ever-escalating tactics (subterfuge, surveillance, sabotage, etc.) to outbid each other and win her heart.  In the process they destroy their friendship, and reduce the woman in question from a person to a prize.  When she realizes what they’ve been up to, she’s not even interested in them anymore.

Genesis 30 touches on a lifelong competition between two sisters – Rachel and Leah – who are married to the same guy.  The prize they’re after is children.  Leah, the less-loved wife, is nonetheless winning the competition.  But their mutual obsession – with significance, affirmation, and love – destroys everything around them.  Not only do they cease to have anything that resembles love for each other.  But their love for their husband is supplanted by blame and resentment as they succeed and fail in their ambition.  And they create a culture of corrosive competition that plays out for generations in their family. 

When we set up areas of our lives as competitions, we find out that even our wins turn into losses.  Siblings, parents, children and friends get set up as rivals.  What should be love turns to hatred when the people around us become barriers to what we want.  Instead of turning what we’ve been given into paradises of blessing and gratitude, we burn down what we have for a fantasy that never materializes.  What’s the antidote?  To never look so hard to the future that we overlook the good gifts God has given right now.  Every person and every relationship you have right now is a gift.  Don’t sacrifice it for the ever-shifting target of your ambition, or some imagined competition.   

From My Morning Post

I subscribe to a daily feed from Biblegateway.com.  Here's today's excerpt from Tozer:

Now John himself was clothed in camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the region around the Jordan went out to him and were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins.—Matthew 3:4-5

"Let me give you some reasons why I believe God could honor John the Baptist in that day in which he lived.

First, John had the ability to live and meditate in solitude. He knew the meaning of quietness. He was in the desert until the time of his showing forth unto Israel as a prophet. He came out of his lonely solitude to break the silence like a drumbeat or as the trumpet sounds. The crowds came—all gathered to hear this man who had been with God and who had come from God.

In our day we just cannot get quiet enough and serene enough to wait on God. Somebody has to be talking. Somebody has to be making a noise. But John had gone into the silence and had matured in a kind of special school with God and the stars and the wind and the sand....

I do not believe it is stretching a point at all to say that we will most often hear from God in those times when we are silent."

(A.W. Tozer, Christ the Eternal Son, 130)

Side Bets

Passage: Genesis 20:1-18

Abraham’s story begins when God approaches him and says,

Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.

Who knows exactly how God said it.  But God's voice was clear enough that Abraham did what God said.  God spoke distinctly, personally, and supernaturally to Abraham.

And God did so not only to give Abraham a command, but to make an audacious promise: Your offspring will be more numerous than the stars in the sky, and your name will be remembered forever.

God repeats this promise more than once.  God signs a blood oath to guarantee his promise.  And God proceeds to protect and provide for Abraham at every step of his journey.

All of this is remarkable enough.  Even more remarkable is the fact that Abraham consistently demonstrates a lack of trust in what God says.  Throughout Scripture Abraham is held up as a shining example of faith.  And yet Abraham repeatedly does things to ensure his own fortunes.  He fathers a child by his wife’s maidservant, not trusting God to give him a child within his own marriage.  And not once, but twice, Abraham passes his wife off as his sister while passing through enemy territory.  Both times, God intervenes miraculously to protect Sarah’s virtue.  The second time, Abraham confesses that this is an agreement he asked Sarah to make when they left his homeland: This is the kindness you must do me: at every place to which we come, say of me, “He is my brother.”  Recall that Abraham left his homeland because God spoke directly to him and told him to go.  Even as he acted in faith, Abraham maintained this side bet – just in case God didn’t come through.

Is the story of Abraham the story of a man of unwavering faith?  No.  It’s the story of a God who, in spite of our side bets and shortcomings, is unwavering in his faithfulness.  The most remarkable aspect of Abraham’s story is that God makes good his promise regardless of what Abraham does on the side. 

The lesson?  If God promises it, he’ll do it.  Nothing we do can ensure God’s action nor deter him from it.  The challenge is for us to trust God to follow through on his commitments, understanding that God will deliver when and how he intends to do so.  And trusting that God has good reasons for doing it his way. 

Babel

Passage: Genesis 11:1-9

There has always seemed something a little unfair about the story of the Tower of Babel.  In it, a group of early humans endeavor to build a tower that reaches heaven.  God, observing their progress, says, “As one people speaking one language, there’s no limit to what they’ll be able to do.”  God proceeds to scramble the speech centers of their brains, so they end up talking different languages.  None of them can understand each other.  They go their separate ways, and are scattered across the face of the earth.  The beginnings of their magnificent tower become a monument to their failed effort. 

Why does God do it?  Is he nervous that they might reach heaven?  Of course not.  We know that God doesn’t actually reside in the sky.  Is there a possibility that humanity could become a match for God’s power and majesty?  Of course not.  God’s power is limitless.  No created thing is a threat to God.  Why would God do something as seemingly capricious as pulling the ace of language confusion out of his sleeve?

Perhaps it isn’t good for people to be without limitations.  I recently watched Chronicle, a film about three teenage boys who develop superpowers after being exposed to alien radiation.  They take the kind of delight you’d expect in moving objects with their minds and learning how to fly.  One of the boys develops his powers more quickly than the other two.  He is also the one of the group who has the biggest inferiority complex.  Suddenly his superpowers become a way of getting back at the kids who bullied him and the father who abused him.  Convinced of his superiority, he isolates himself from everyone – included his closest friends and family.  Without limitations, his powers become monstrous.

Is it possible that this is what happens to all people?  The unbridled growth of all our potentials includes the unrestrained expansion of our capacity to do evil.  To abuse those who are weaker than ourselves.  To consume more and more of the resources available to us.  Could it be that God’s boundary-setting at Babel was an act of love?  And could it be that when God imposes limits on you and me, he also does so in love?  The thing we need most in the world is an intimate connection with God.  The more powerful and independent we are, the more we buy the delusion that we don’t need God.  We are at our best when we accept our limitations.  And when, in our weakness, we rest in him.   

Temptation

Passage: Matthew 4:1-11

The book Son, by Lois Lowry, tells the story of a young woman driven to great lengths to find the child separated from her at birth.  At a pivotal point in her journey the woman's way is blocked by a character called "Trademaster".  He will let her proceed only after she has made an exchange with him.  He asks for her youth, which she gives willingly because she believes it's the only way to get what she wants.  Trademaster upholds his part of the bargain, delivering the woman to the village where her son is being raised.  But she arrives as an old woman, her life spent in the exchange.  The reunion she envisioned is impossible. 

The temptation of Jesus appears in three of the four gospels.  It’s an episode that is essential to our theology of Jesus – a God who identifies with our weakness because he has experienced it.  But it also captures something profound about the costly trades we make with the Tempter.  Our lives are driven by objectives that in the moment seem all-consuming, but are fleeting in the long run.  And our worst compromises are usually made for things that can’t live up to the ultimate value we’ve afforded them.  God continually asks us to sacrifice immediate gratification – to give up something we have easily in hand – trusting that he will give us what we need on his terms.  The basis on which God can make this demand is twofold.  First, he’s God, and he is perfectly able to make good his commitment to us.  Second, when given the option of an immediate result, God himself chooses to achieve his long-term results through means that are costly in the short term.  Jesus chooses hunger and obscurity and physical pain.  But in the end he achieves glory – not just for himself, but for all of us.  The only way to share his glory is to share his suffering.  To say no to temptation now, trusting that in his own time God will give us everything our hearts desire.  

Kiss the Son

Passage: Psalm 2

Psalm 2 is written from the perspective of a familiar Old Testament character: God’s “anointed”.  Traditionally, psalms like Psalm 2 have been attributed to David, the consummate king of Israel – anointed by God’s prophet, and identified as “a man after God’s own heart.”  So closely aligned was David with God that his reign and his will were considered virtually synonymous with God’s.  To defy God’s anointed would be to defy God himself. 

The language of Psalm 2 captures this idea.  The writer speaks from the perspective of a king ordained by God to rule God’s way.  He expresses wonder at his political adversaries – kings and rulers who conspire to overthrow the one God has set in place.  The writer envisions God laughing at the futility of the efforts of mere humans trying to set themselves up as gods on earth. 

Now from any other person, Psalm 2 would be a megalomaniacal rant.  The writer pawns himself off as God’s gift to governance.  Presumes to represent God’s interests and God’s authority.  But this is exactly what comes with the job.  God’s anointing is God’s seal of divine approval.  God gives his Anointed authority on earth. 

The psalm takes on new meaning when read through the lens of the New Testament.  The Hebrew word for “Anointed One” is mashiach – “messiah” in English; Christos in Greek.  Christ.  Without exception the authors of the New Testament identify Jesus as the “greater Son of David”.  The ultimate king.  The Anointed One.  On the lips of a human king, Psalm 2 is presumptuous.  On Jesus’ lips, it is only fitting.  The author of Hebrews, writing of Jesus, actually quotes the psalm:

In the same way, Christ did not take on himself the glory of becoming a high priest. But God said to him, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father.” (Heb. 5:5)

With this in mind, we do well to pay close attention to the final paragraph of Psalm 2, in particular these lines:

Serve the Lord with fear and celebrate his rule with trembling.

Kiss his son, or he will be angry and your way will lead to your destruction,
for his wrath can flare up in a moment.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

There is only one right response to the King of the universe: homage.  To fall on your knees and kiss his feet.  To do anything else is to consider yourself more highly than you ought.  We all want to be kings.  We struggle to carve out kingdoms, however small, wherever we can.  Life doesn’t take its proper shape until we embrace our proper place: as servants of the King.  But how good it is to belong to him.  To take refuge not in our limited strength or smarts, but in his infinite power, mercy, and love.  Respect the ultimate authority of God’s Anointed.  And then celebrate the fact that he is on your side.